Eagle track team keeps improving

SUTHERLAND—Team scores announced at the end of the field events Friday at the Sutherland Invite showed the Brady boys’ strength in the jumps and throws.

The Eagles led the field of 13 teams as running events began on the track.

But lack of depth and strong competition left Brady in fourth in the team standings at the end of the day.

“I feel really good about where our boys are,” said Eagle coach Rich Britten. “We beat some bigger schools and we continue to improve each week.”

Sutherland won the boys team title and Perkins County took home the hardware in the girls competition.

Brady’s girls tied for seventh with Wauneta-Palisade.

“We just don’t have the numbers on the girls side,” Britten said.

Still, there was plenty for him to praise for both boys and girls.

Senior Corbin Blede and junior Brad Ward earned the only gold medals for the Eagles.

Blede threw 50 feet, 2 inches in the shot to win the event.

“Corbin is beginning to hit that 50-foot range more consistently now,” Britten said. “He also threw his personal best in the discus.”

Blede marked 126-10 to place third.

Although not his best jump ever, Ward cleared 6-0 to win the high jump. He also placed second in long jump and fifth in triple jump as well as running a leg of the fifth-place 4x100 relay.

“We’ve got that 400 relay down to just over 47 seconds,” Britten said. “They’re improving all the time.”

The 4x800 relay members also continue to shave seconds off their time.

They’ve gone from 9:27 early in the year to 9:00.6 for second place this week, holding off district opponent Paxton by just two-tenths of a second.

Tyrel Grasz, Cole Viter, Lincoln Blede and Dalton Riedel have all dropped their times to improve the relay.

“I think we’ve still got a few seconds to go,” Britten said.

On the girls side, sophomore Megan Polt brought home four medals. She was third in the 100-meter dash and fourth in the 200 and 400 while also running on the fourth-place 4x400 relay.

Britten said the 4x400 relay of Polt, Brittney Christophersen, Dakota Terry and Courtney Widick is shooting for the school record at 4:25.

“We were at 4:32 this week and have been down as far as 4:27,” Britten said. “It all comes down to attitude, weather conditions and legs at the end of the day. The great thing about that relay is that they’re all underclassmen.”

Britten said freshman Molly Hannon also chopped a big chunk off her time in the 1600-meter run to finish fourth at 6:13.5.

“It’s the improvements from week to week that make a coach proud,” he said.

The Eagles will host the Brady-Gothenburg Invite on Thursday at Gothenburg with six teams on the schedule.

Britten said there will be no preliminaries so all events will be run as finals.

“That gets the meet over a little quicker but it doesn’t allow much recovery time for those kids who run back-to-back races,” he said. “We’ll hope for good weather.”

The meet is scheduled to begin at 3 p.m.

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